If you were to ask me who the best male pop singer in the country is, I would immediately say Sam Harris. After seeing Ham, the adaptation of his beautifully written and often humorous memoir Ham: Slices of a Life, at Ars Nova, I'm even more committed to my belief.

The more willing we are to tell the truth about how we feel, what we see and what we want, the easier it becomes and the more likely we are to realize the health benefits - to our bodies, to our relationships and yes, even to our businesses. Telling the truth is the honest path to better health.

Since his highly controversial exchange with Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristof on October 3rd, Bill Maher has insisted that he's simply stating the unpleasant facts about the Muslim world. But there are two particularly noxious myths that need to be debunked.

Let us put this to rest once and for all. This is not a struggle between radical Islam and the West. It is between radical Islam and the rest of us, Muslims and non-Muslims. Freedom is not a Western value. It is a universal value.

If the answer to this question is "no," a case can still be made that the cable news network is on track to rival Fox News in promoting the worst Islamophobic stereotypes. The latest controversy involving an interview with Reza Aslan raises serious concerns about CNN's willingness to tap into and reinforce widespread prejudices against Islam in order to generate ratings.

Ben is talking about Muslims who aspire to the same things that all people of genuine good will aspire to, aspirations widely shared by most Americans. Hard work. Raising a family. Giving to charity. Practicing our faith. And the opportunity to do so free of judgment -- certainly free of fear or violence.

As the fight against ISIS/ISIL continues, and so do our campaigns to fight terrorism around the world, we are bound to be reminded that we are not in a war against Islam. But why is it that when I turn on the news, listen to people discuss Islam or look at images of Muslims in popular culture, it damn sure feels like we are.

It feels good for many people to look at Islam without looking at the bigger picture of geopolitics and foreign policy, but doing so allows us to repeat the same mistakes, while focusing intently on only part of the problem.

I am a big fan of Nicholas Kristof so I was disappointed by his argument with Sam Harris and Bill Maher and his defense of his position in his New York Times column today. Kristof thinks he's defending the moderate; in fact, he's empowering the fanatic.

For all of the great work Bill Maher does by adding an unapologetically liberal voice to sensitive topics, his recent heated debate with actor Ben Affleck and author Sam Harris has put Bill at odds with many liberals. The biggest problem with Bill's stance is that he seems content to shout into the wind.

I detest religious extremism, but what I detest equally is funding this plague and pretending the billions in weapons we give to Islamic fundamentalists isn't the primary reason that ISIS and other terrorist groups exist.

To Mr. Maher and Mr. Harris directly: please walk back your statements. I'm not denying that the Muslim world is filled with hate, homophobia, intolerance and more violence than the western world. I just don't want everyone thinking all atheists are like you guys.

When Ben Affleck differentiates the extremists from the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims, and when Harris and Maher claim that polls indicate the extreme are a larger part of the overall pie than we think, Affleck's argument is not only stronger, but correlates to the raison detre for both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

It's difficult to assert, as Harris does, that if people just think about it enough, they will come to understand that their most basic sense of consciousness is not really there. The advantage of such an approach is that it conveniently elides the conclusions that many would be drawn to make.

New atheism is far from dead because it is a term to simply describe vocal atheists who came out of the closet after 9/11 and attacked religion around the world like it had not seen in the past, but it also is not a term one needs to simply identify with.

They said it about Hicks, and they said it about Carlin: they were not only comedians, but great thinkers. They were cultural commentators, who just happen to pepper in some d**k jokes for good measure.

When you're unable to introduce Pakistan-style blasphemy laws in a secular, Western society, you have to find alternative ways to silence those who offend you, right? And that's where the "Islamophobia" smear comes in.